Friday, February 01, 2008

Service pack 2 for SQL Server 2005 is already 11 months old. And there is still no sign of service pack 3 on the horizon. Why is that? Has Microsoft managed to release a perfect, completely bug-free product? No, of course not – with the size and complexity of a product such as SQL Server is, that will simply never happen.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Microsoft has just released their first service pack for Microsoft Office 2007, promising lots of bug fixes, performance enhancements, and improved security. The 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 1 delivers important customer-requested stability and performance improvements, while incorporating further enhancements to user security. This service pack also includes all of the updates released for the 2007 Office suite prior to December of 2007. You can get a more complete description of SP1, including a list of issues that were fixed, in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 936982: Description of the 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 1.

Access 2007For third-party applications that use Data Access Object code to synchronize replicated information in a Microsoft Office Access™ 2007 database, Office Access 2007 no longer returns a run-time error that causes the application to close or time out.

Communicator 2007Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 now presents more accurate presence information and does so with consistent visual cues.

The icons used to display presence are modified so that users who are red-green colorblind can determine people’s presence status.

Office Excel 2007 no longer misplaces or wraps labels in charts when the workbook is reopened.

Groove 2007For Microsoft Office Groove® 2007, issues surrounding the activation of new and previously retired accounts have been resolved.

Office Groove 2007 no longer places a 60-day limit on retired accounts that are stored in backup files.

When the auto-activation feature is turned on and invited users open an invitation file (.grv), they are no longer prompted for an activation key or notified of an unconfigured account.InfoPath 2007 and InfoPath Forms ServerMicrosoft Office InfoPath® 2007 benefits from a more consistent user experience, especially with online forms.

When users input data into an Office InfoPath 2007 form using a Web browser, the saved changes are now retained after closing and reopening the form.

Font size no longer increases when pasting from one rich text box in Office InfoPath 2007 to another.

Outlook 2007Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 benefits from a number of fixes and enhancements that make the popular messaging client more stable and easier to use.

Office Outlook 2007 no longer closes unexpectedly when the junk e-mail rule is set to null.

Body content in HTML-formatted e-mail messages now appears properly in the preview pane or when the message is opened.

Items moved from an offline folder file (.ost) to a personal folder file (.pst) now display properly in the preview pane.

In search folders, Office Outlook 2007 now shows the accurate count for unread items that are hidden.

When scheduling a resource such as a meeting room in meeting requests, the public free/busy information for the resource is now complete and visible in Office Outlook 2007.

When users forward plain-text e-mail messages with attachments, the body text is now retained.

If the Mailbox Cleanup wizard starts while the user is dragging a message into a folder, Office Outlook 2007 no longer closes unexpectedly.

PowerPoint 2007Fixes in Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2007 make the presentation application even more reliable, especially when used in conjunction with Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, Web sites that use forms authentication, or event macros.

Users who have started an event macro in Office PowerPoint 2007 can now advance slides by right-clicking and then choosing Next or Previous.

When users try to open a presentation in Office PowerPoint 2007 from a Web site using forms authentication, the presentation will now appear properly.

Users can now open presentations in Office PowerPoint 2007 from e-mail attachments in Office Outlook Web Access.

Office PowerPoint 2007 no longer crashes when the user programmatically accesses the parent property of the Hyperlinks Collection Object in the Office PowerPoint 2007 object model.

Text formatting now behaves similarly to previous versions of PowerPoint, where new text retains the formatting of the deleted text instead of using the formatting of the character to the left.

Office Project 2007 no longer crashes when users click to view Windows account or Details in the Resources Information dialog box and then perform any other action.

Office Project 2007 does not produce an error message when a link from one task accesses a task in a different project stored on Office Project Server 2007. This error only occurred when the linked project was renamed.

Microsoft Office Project Web Access now makes task IDs available and allows users to enter a work estimate when creating a new task.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 now has the ability to be installed on Windows Server 2008 providing compatibility and support.

ASP.NET AJAX has compatibility and support with Office SharePoint Server 2007 including examples for customer web parts build the AJAX 1.0 Control Toolkit and the AJAX 1.0 Extensions for ASP.NET (KB 941955)

New manageability with STSADM commands for consolidating or repartitioning your content databases, renaming host named site collections, and the ability to scope the people picker to a specific active directory organizational unit.

Advanced search results now include results with spaces in file names.

The View by Modified Date function now works correctly in search results.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 is now able to crawl case-sensitive Web content on computers not running the Windows® operating system.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 can now index a public folder on a Microsoft Exchange Server with a backslash in the subject.

Visio 2007Microsoft Office Visio® 2007 now properly redraws shapes when users apply a dynamic connector that is part of a group of shapes in Office Visio 2007.Word 2007By taking care of several small stability and usability details, Microsoft Office Word 2007 is a more useful and reliable tool for everyday document creation tasks.

With Office Word 2007, users can now open and edit embedded objects that contain other embedded objects.

When using smart documents in Office Word 2007, the Document Actions task pane no longer disappears when moving the pointer into the Reviewing pane. Additionally, task panes opened earlier no longer appear unexpectedly.

Office Word 2007 properly creates and updates a table of contents in unprotected sections of documents that also contain sections protected for forms.

Office Word 2007 no longer prints an extra page when users choose a printer with the duplex option enabled.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

How to obtain Cumulative Update 3 for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2A supported cumulative update package is now available from Microsoft. However, it is intended to correct only the problems that are described in this article. Apply it only to systems that are experiencing these specific problems. This cumulative update package may receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by any of these problems, we recommend that you wait for the next SQL Server 2005 service pack that contains the hotfixes in this cumulative update package.

To resolve this problem, submit a request to Microsoft Online Customer Services to obtain the cumulative update package. To submit an online request to obtain the cumulative update package, visit the following Microsoft Web site:http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=6294451

Here is what is fixed:50001581938243 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938243/)FIX: Error message when you run a full-text query against a catalog in SQL Server 2005: “The execution of a full-text query failed. The content index is corrupt."

50001586940129 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940129/)FIX: An MDX query does not return results when you execute the query against a cube that contains an unnatural hierarchy in a dimension in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services

50001448940221 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940221/)FIX: Error message when you try to create an Oracle publication by using the New Publication Wizard in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2: “OLE DB Provider "OraOLEDB.ORACLE" for Linked server returned message "ORA-02074: Cannot RO

50001451940223 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940223/)FIX: Error message when you synchronize a subscription by using Windows Synchronization Manager in SQL Server 2005: “The merge process failed to get correct information about the Interactive Resolver component from the Registry"

50001435940269 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940269/)FIX: Error message when you try to edit a SQL Server Agent job or a maintenance plan by using SQL Server Management Studio in SQL Server 2005: "String or binary data would be truncated"

50001351940370 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940370/)FIX: The "User:" prefix is lost for the event information that is generated by a child package in SQL Server 2005 Integration Services after you install SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2

50001382940373 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940373/)FIX: The performance of a Multidimensional Expressions query in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Service Pack 2 is much slower than the performance in earlier builds of SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services

50001479940384 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940384/)FIX: You receive a System.InvalidCastException exception when you run an application that calls the Server.JobServer.Jobs.Contains method on a computer that has SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 installed

50001629940942 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940942/)FIX: Error message when you run a stored procedure that references a table that is upgraded from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005: “A time-out occurred while waiting for buffer latch"

50001576940962 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940962/)FIX: When processing a dimension on SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services an error is raised with the following format: "The following file is corrupted: Physical file: \\?\\MSMDBuildLevelStores_avl_672_29775_njzs2.tmp. Logical file ."

50001522939562 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939562/)FIX: Error message when you run a query that fires an INSTEAD OF trigger in SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2: "Internal Query Processor Error The query processor could not produce a query plan"

50001224937100 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937100/)FIX: Error message when you run a SQL Server 2005 Integration Services package that contains a Script Component transformation: "Insufficient memory to continue the execution of the program"

50001529940945 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940945/)FIX: Performance is very slow when the same stored procedure is executed at the same time in many connections on a multiple-processor computer that is running SQL Server 2005

50001578939285 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939285/)FIX: Error message when you run a stored procedure that starts a transaction that contains a Transact-SQL statement in SQL Server 2005: "New request is not allowed to start because it should come with valid transaction descriptor"

50000872The MDX query performance is slow in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services because SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services does not reuse the data cache50001109The dta utility stops unexpectedly and an exception occurs in SQL Server 200550001224When you run a SQL Server 2005 Integration Services package that uses the VariableDispenser class, the package fails and you receive an error message50001365After you install SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, you receive error 8624 if the result set of a fast forward cursor contains a certain number of columns50001368After you install SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, the performance of a MDX query is 10 times slower than the performance on SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services build 155550001396When you open a SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services report after you install SQL Server 2005 Service pack 2, the parameter toolbar and the report toolbar does not appear correctly if you specify the SP_Full value for the rc:StyleSheet URL access parameter on a report URL50001412Error message when you use the Copy Database Wizard to move a database from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005: "Cannot drop database "Database_Name" because it is currently in use.". Possible failure reasons: Problems with the query, "ResultSet" property not set correctly, parameters not set correctly, or connection not established correctly"50001414Error message when you use the bcp utility together with the queryout option to bulk copy data from SQL Server 2005 to a file: "SQLState = HY000, NativeError = 0 Error = [Microsoft][SQL Native Client]BCP host-files must contain at least onecolumn"50001415After you install SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, the Msmdredir.ini file is frequently updated by each instance of SQL Server 200550001436Error message when you use the BACKUP DATABASE statement together with the UNLOAD option and with the REWIND option to back up a tape device in SQL Server 2005: "Operation on device 'TAPE0()' exceeded retry count"50001461When some MDX queries are executed at the same for the same role or for the same user in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services, the CPU usage is very high50001475When you open a report that contains a date and time picker (DTP) control in SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, the format of the DTP control appears incorrectly50001511Error 9003 occurs when you restore a transaction log backup in SQL Server 200550001520The query syntax of a report is changed when you run the report in SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Service Pack 2 on SAP BW 3.550001522Error 8624 occurs when you run a query in SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (SP2) or later versions. However, you can successfully run the query in pre-SP2 version of SQL Server 200550001523After you install SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, publications that use precomputed partitions can cause the non-convergence of data50001525Error message when you use SQL Server Agent to run jobs by using a proxy account: " SQLServer Error: 22046, Encryption error using CryptProtectData, CryptUnprotectData failed (1723)"50001526Using SQL Server Agent to run jobs in the context of a proxy account may fail with error "SQLServer Error: 22046, Encryption error using CryptProtectData, CryptUnprotectData failed (1723)"50001529The performance of SQL Server 2005 decreases because SQL Server 2005 is waiting for access to memory objects which is indicated by the CMEMTHREAD waittype50001578An exception occurs in SQL Native Client: "New request is not allowed to start because it should come with valid transaction descriptor"50001579When you use SQL Native Client to retrieve a value in a column of the TEXT data type, you obtain incorrect result if the value contains more than 1024 characters50001580Memory leak of the TokenAndPermAccessCheckResult entries occurs in SQL Server 200550001595When you use SQL Native Client for a connection, the connection switches to use the auto-commit mode from the manually-commit mode50001598SQL Native Client overwrite error codes which causes that you do not receive informative error messages when some operations fails50001639The performance of an INSERT statement or an UPDATE statement that uses the result from a query is much slower in SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 than in SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1 or earlier versions if the query uses the nodes method50001164FIX: Error message when you connect to an instance of SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services by using the AMO library that is included with SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 Analysis Services: "Cannot connect to Analysis Services version '10.0.1019.17'"

OverviewIf the machine participated in the Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista Beta, please be sure to uninstall the beta first.

During the development of Windows Vista, several key investments were made to vastly improve overall quality, security, and reliability from previous versions of Windows. While we have made tremendous investments in Windows Vista to ensure backwards compatibility, some of the system enhancements, such as User Account Control, changes to the networking stack, and the new graphics model, make Windows Vista behave differently from previous versions of Windows. These investments impact Visual Studio 2005. The Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista addresses areas of Visual Studio impacted by Vista enhancements.Many of the Windows Vista enhancements are documented at the Windows Vista Development Center.

This download installs the Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista for the following Visual Studio SKUs:

Monday, February 19, 2007

Microsoft Corp. today released Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 SP2, an update to its award-winning data management and analysis platform. Customers can now take advantage of enhancements in the familiar and easy-to-use Windows Vista™ operating system and 2007 Microsoft Office system to easily connect and integrate with the power, security and reliability of SQL Server 2005. In addition, Microsoft announced that it is expanding virtualization use rights to allow unlimited virtual instances on servers that are fully licensed for SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition. For customers who want maximum flexibility in their use of virtualization technology, now or in the future, SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition is the ideal choice.

“SP2 delivers customer-driven improvements and new features that align with our data platform vision,” said Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Data and Storage Platform Division at Microsoft. “SP2 realizes a step forward in enabling organizations to bring the business intelligence capabilities of SQL Server 2005 directly to end users in the tools they use every day.”

Key enhancements to SQL Server SP2 include the following:

• Data Mining Add-ins for the 2007 Microsoft Office system enable data mining functionality from SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) to be used directly within Excel® 2007 and Visio® 2007.

• Interoperability improvements including Oracle support in the Report Builder feature enable customers to use its functionality on top of Oracle data sources. Customers also have access to SQL Server Reporting Services to build reports on top of Hyperion’s Essbase cubes.

I sense many useless updates in you... Useless updates lead to fragmentation... Fragmentation leads to downtime...Downtime leads to suffering..Fragmentation is the path to the darkside.. DBCC INDEXDEFRAG and DBCC DBREINDEX are the force...May the force be with you"